My paper sets out to demonstrate that Weber's ideal-typical theory of concept formation, subject to certain modifications, is compatible with the principles of philosophical hermeneutics and is therefore a valuable strategy of concept formation for interpretive historical inquiry. The essay begins with a brief recapitulation of the philosophical-hermeneutic approach to the human sciences. I then chart out the affinities as well as the discrepancies between philosophical hermeneutics and Weber's theory of the ideal type. Against this backdrop, I (...) proceed to offer a number of correctives and additions to Weber's theory so as to tighten its fit with philosophical hermeneutics. First, I argue that the ideal type's proper logic of concept formation is a logic of significance rather than a logic of commonality. Second, I claim that the relationship between the various empirical cases to which a given ideal type is (or can be) applied is a Wittgensteinian relationship of family resemblance. Finally, I present two main kinds of epistemological functions that ideal types can fulfill within the framework of historical inquiry: argumentative and orientational-clarificatory. (shrink)

The term “pagan monotheism” was coined to describe monotheistic tendencies in Greco-Roman religion. Its usefulness has been strongly disputed on various grounds: for introducing a cognitive perspective on ancient religion, which was basically ritualistic; for implicitly taking Christianity as the norm by which to measure classical religion; and for confusing scholarly categories by classifying phenomena as monotheistic that are much better described as henotheistic. This article suggests that these arguments have been attempts to create a supposedly objective and universal scholarly (...) vocabulary, while that new vocabulary would serve to obscure the history and ideological origin of the concepts it promoted. Arguing for a reflective, hermeneutical approach that incorporates an awareness of the origin and charged meanings of our concepts into scholarship, the author proposes methodological pluralism as a way out of these unfruitful terminological debates. Each concept sheds light on some aspects of reality while obscuring others. In particular, the often-criticized ambiguity and fuzziness of the term “pagan monotheism” may help us to formulate questions that otherwise would remain marginal in studies of ancient religion. (shrink)

Paul Ricœur’s hermeneutic approach to psychoanalysis stresses the interpretation of meanings revealed via the narratives woven through the discursive exchanges between analyst and analysand. Despite the tremendous influence Ricœur’s interpretation enjoyed both in philosophy and in psychoanalysis, his approach has been subject to severe criticism by Adolf Grünbaum who argues that Freud modeled psychoanalysis on the natural sciences, and therefore it should be judged according to natural scientific standards. I argue that Grünbaum incorrectly downplays the importance of speech and (...) language in psychoanalytic theory and practice, and moreover, that Ricœur’s approach offers important insights that deserve to be redeployed today. (shrink)

Oppressive ideology regularly misrepresents features of structural injustice as normal or appropriate. Resisting such injustice therefore requires critical examination of the evaluative judgments encoded in shared concepts. In this paper, I diagnose a mechanism of ideological misevaluation, which I call "hermeneutical misfit." Hermeneutical misfit occurs when thick concepts, or concepts which both describe and evaluate, mobilize ideologically warped evaluative judgments which do not fit the facts (e.g. "slutty"). These ill-fitted thick concepts in turn are regularly deployed as if they merely (...) describe--a phenomenon I call "descriptive masquerade." I argue that, via descriptive masquerade, ill-fitted thick concepts smuggle in warped evaluative judgments alongside apparently value-neutral ‘mere facts’, a process which both reinforces those judgments and increases the difficulty of critique. I investigate the concept "obesity" as an example: scientists and medical practitioners will deploy this concept as if it "merely" describes, enabling the smuggling of a host of warped evaluative judgments. I suggest that, to resist this process, we should develop collective consciousness and articulate "meta-hermeneutical resources," or thick concepts which encode critique of other, ill-fitted concepts (e.g. "slut-shaming" or "fat-shaming"). (shrink)

In this article, I ask whether Korsgaard’s ethics can be reconciled with a hermeneutic understanding of the human subject. Hermeneutics, inspired by Nietzsche, has traditionally been skeptical about the notion that moral principles have authority over us. But Korsgaard’s account of normativity as grounded in self-consciousness and its reflective distance from beliefs and desires is strikingly similar to Gadamer’s description of human beings as distant and ‘free’ from their environment. The question hermeneutics poses to deontology is how a finite (...) subject can be bound unconditionally by principles, when our understanding of them is always historically mediated and partial. I argue that Gadamer’s notion of the subject matter of understanding (the Sache) allows us to see that we understand our principles as interpretations of fully determined principles. What binds us is the principle that we are always revising our way toward, but whose content we never completely determine. (shrink)

A phenomenological hermeneutic study of the lifeworld of critical care nursing was undertaken, from which emerged the concept of ‘focusing’. Focusing is defined as empathizing concern for the critically ill person and his/her family amid the high technology of the intensive care unit. When nurses focus on the patient and the patient's family they are able to empathize with die personal dimensions of caring. The study used a phenomenological hermeneutic approach to describe die nature of the lived (...) experience of clinical nursing practice in a high technology environment. (shrink)

This essay deals with two poetics of distinctly different traditions that arrived at the same concept of literary art, one in which the reader of, or listener to, a poem shares in the creative process with the poet. The first tradition I will examine is the that of the pre-Hispanic Mexican poets of the Cantares mexicanos and the 20th- century appropriation of their work by two of Mexico's most distinguished poets, Octavio Paz (1914–1998) and ]ose Emilio Pacheco (1939–2014), both (...) awarded the Premio Cervantes, and Paz, the Nobel Prize. The second part of this essay examines the contemporary Continental tradition of philosophical hermeneutics that began with Martin Heidegger (1889–1976) and Hans-Georg Gadamer (1900–2001) and culminated in the work of Paul Ricoeur (1913– 2005). Although Heidegger is now well known among philosophers throughout the world, it should be noted that ]ose Gaos of the National University of Mexico, an exile from Spain, completed the first translation of Heidegger's Sein und Zeit in 1951, more than a decade before the English and French translations appeared. (shrink)

This paper aims to consider some semantic aspects of the phenomenon of hermeneutical injustice overlooked in recent literature. First, we examine different cases of hermeneutical injustices and we propose to classify them according to their semantic structure. The core of this classification lies in the distinction between cases related to problems of content and cases related to problems of circulation of social concepts. Second, we criticize a semantic conception, implicit in much of the literature concern- ing hermeneutical injustice, according to (...) which concepts are mere labels. We show that this conception cannot provide an adequate understanding of the different cases of hermeneutical injustice that we identify: first, because it fails to capture the dynamics of conceptual change or refinement that these cases involve and, second, because it leads to diagnosing them as mere problems of concept application. (shrink)

The concept of hermeneutical experience is conceived analogously to that of aesthetic, religious or empirical experience. The unique nature of hermeneutical experience is the comprehension of the meaning of artificial signs or sign-systems, such as art, literature, laws, institutions, actions, etc. It may be questioned how far and to what extent hermeneutical experience is second-hand experience, i.e., secondary to primary experience expressed in signs, or, following a well-known formula of Boeckh, a ‘recognition of what has been recognized before’.

lnek je zamen na vybran implikace mezi sociologickou hermeneutikou (pstup) a analzou metafor (analytick koncept). Konkrtn je een vztah lingvistickho kontextu textu (jako empirickho korpusu) a vyplvajcch (skrytch) implikac, kter jsou odhaliteln dky kontextu metaforickho vznamu. Uren vztah me pomoci k zpesnn role sociologick hermeneutiky v socilnch vdch, konkrtn k monosti volby v kvalitativnch metodch skrze kritickou metodologii. Vstupem lnku je konstatovn siln vazby mezi tvorbou kontextulnch metafor a postavenm polysmickho slova ve vt, kter dky tomu tvo zkladnm referenn objekt (...) empirickho korpusu pro samotnou analzu. (shrink)

This article explores the relationship between hermeneutical injustice in religious settings and religious trauma and spiritual violence. In it I characterize a form of hermeneutical injustice that arises when experiences are obscured from collective understanding by normatively laden concepts, and I argue that this form of HI often plays a central role in cases of religious trauma and spiritual violence, even those involving children. In section I, I introduce the reader to the phenomena of religious trauma and spiritual violence. In (...) section II, I describe the role normatively laden concepts play in shaping our social experience. I then elucidate how they can contribute to HI. In section III, I provide a brief overview of the history of some significant identity prejudices in the history of Christianity and argue that children can properly be understood as victims of HI within some religious communities. I then return in section IV to the examples of religious trauma and spiritual violence offered throughout the article and demonstrate that HI plays an important causal role in each of them. HIs sometimes constitute spiritual and religious harms; at other times they create an epistemic environment conducive to spiritual abuse. (shrink)

Certain critics, e.g. Manfred Frank and Hans-Herbert Kögler, claim that Hans-Georg Gadamer's philosophical hermeneutics reduces the individual subject to a mere instrument of history and tradition, the latter reproducing themselves through the subject. However, Gadamer also emphasizes the active role of the subject in shaping and creating history and tradition. In this article I argue that the critics mistakenly emphasize a one-sided conception of history. By incorporating both active and passive aspects of the subject, Gadamer's philosophical hermeneutics provides the means (...) by which the individual may be conceived more aptly in an interdependent, dialectical relation to their corresponding historical, cultural, and social context. (shrink)

이 연구는 성서텍스트에 대한 나이브한 접근인 “1차 단순성”을 해체한 불트만의 비신화화를 비판하면서 리쾨르가 성서의 신화를 해석학적으로 복원하는 논증이다. 소위 2차 단순성(seconde naïveté)을 해명하기 위해 이 논문의 3장부터 리쾨르가 본격적으로 비판하게 될 불트만은 성서의 신화에서는 사유할 거리가 있는 그 어떤 것도 찾아내지 못한다. 말하자면 불트만은 신화를 너무 무가치한 것으로 본 것이다. 게다가 불트만은 자신의 신앙을 보존하기 위해 결국 이성에서 벗어나야만 했다. 고로 비합리적이고 실존적인 결단력에 의한 믿음의 비약이 그에게 필요했으며 이것이 바로 ‘신앙주의’로 불리게 된다. 반면 리쾨르는 신화에서조차 인간이 사유할 거리를 발견하면서 (...) 이성의 외부로 신화를 던져버리지 않는다. 그는 결코 합리적 반성의 외부에서는 판단하지 않을 이 신화들의 공헌으로부터 자신을 단절하지 않은 채 믿음의 보존을 바란 것이다. 요컨대 리쾨르는 신화를 다룬 그리스비극 및 성서텍스트가 인류학적 차원에서 중요할 뿐만 아니라, ‘주체의 발견’과 같은 인간 조건에 대한 인식에도 공헌한다고 강조하면서 불트만을 비판함으로 해석학적 철학을 재구성한 것이다. (shrink)

The purpose of the study is the hermeneutic reconstruction of the political in the original concepts of K. Schmitt and H. Arendt. The scientific novelty lies in the analysis of the approaches of K. Schmitt and H. Arendt to the identification of the essence of the political. As a result, the differences between the theoretical approaches of K. Schmitt and H. Arendt were revealed, which correlate with each other according to the principle of complementarity. According to K. Schmitt, in (...) the era of modernity there is a monopolization of politics by the state, which acquires an external character and is implemented in the space of international relations. H. Arendt considers the political as the quintessence of active life, which is carried out by free people, first in the space of the ancient polis, and in later times – in other formats of publicity. (shrink)

In this article I argue that Aristotle’s discussion of chance in the Physics gives an important contribution to the theory of action put forward in the Nicomachean Ethics, in particular as regards its notion that man is himself the origin or ground of his actions. Whereas the ethical works show a tendency to explain this notion in objective and causal terms, the account of chance as the happening of the unexpected not only points to the essential finitude of all human (...) conduct, but also indicates that the concept of ground in connection with human agency must be understood in subjective terms, or in the direction of sense-giving and responsibility. (shrink)

This paper discusses a version of the hermeneutic philosophy of science. Special focus is placed on the ways of reading theoretical objects in scientific inquiry. In implementing readable technologies, this reading succeeds in contextually visualizing the theoretical objects by means of various sorts of signs. A configuration of readable technology accomplishes a further step. The configuration textualizes the contextually produced signs. Textualizing the reading of theoretical objects interlaces the meaningful articulation and objectification of scientific domains. The horizon of possibilities (...) for textualizing is constantly shifting in the process of normal-scientific inquiry, and the shifting horizon plays the role of a hermeneutic fore-structuring of the outcomes of textualizing. The paper explores the importance of “material hermeneutics” for the contextual reading of theoretical objects. The conclusion is drawn that the hermeneutic study of the entanglement of technological artifacts with the outcomes from reading-as-textualizing requires the introduction of ontic-ontological difference. (shrink)

In Cultural Hermeneutics, Mario J. Valdés offers a synthesis of the hermeneutic philosophies of Miguel de Unamuno and Paul Ricoeur, a dialectical method that has formed the basis for many of Valdés' own studies in comparative literature. As Valdés explains in these insightful essays, what Unamuno and Ricoeur shared in their hermeneutic studies was a theory of interpretation in which the meaning of a work of art comes into existence through the dialectical relationship between its creator and its (...) readers, listeners, or viewers. Contextualizing this hermeneutic concept as it appears in the works of both philosophers, Cultural Hermeneutics presents the basis for a profound understanding of the arts. (shrink)

The essence of Nietzscheanism as a philosophical doctrine has never been characterized by a definite consistency or certainty. Instead "indirect followers" and interpreters of Friedrich Nietzsche's philosophy (since this thinker did not have direct followers or a particular school) resorted to a variety of interpretations of his concepts. Considering that, the hermeneutic aspect of the study not only of Nietzsche's texts, but also of his interpreters allows us to look at the hidden potential of the concepts of the German (...) philosopher from a new point of view. In this research, we seek to focus on looking for Nietzschean roots in Ernst Jünger's creative legacy, tracing the transformation of his ideas along the author's intellectual path and showing how those ideas correlate with those of Friedrich Nietzsche himself and how they differ. As a reference point for any study of interpretations of Nietzsche's philosophy, the author singles out many German philosopher concepts at the edge of various interpretations. Such central concepts in the article include the idea of "Apollonian" and "Dionysian" principles (the first), the anthropological idea of " Overhuman" and the interrelated metaphysical triad of "will to power," "reevaluation of all values," and "eternal return." In addition, one of the leading motives of the 20th century, which can be traced to an attempt to read Nietzschean ideas, postulates their location at the junction of philosophical and political-ideological concepts. Analyzing the peculiar hermeneutic conflict of Nietzschean philosophy based on this phenomenon, the author turns to early attempts to understand and implement the ideas of the German thinker, which were carried out directly in Germany. This context is connected in the article with the formation of the foundations of the conservative revolution and the figure of Ernst Jünger since the interpretation of this thinker, to some extent, can be considered one of the first and, undoubtedly, the most resonant. In the course of the research, the author turns to Nietzsche's original texts, forming a kind of hermeneutic circle of the author and interpreters, interpreters and the interpreted, ultimately obtaining in this system the opportunity for a thorough and as independent as possible analysis of the original ideas, counting on the probability of reducing the error of one's interpretation due to paying attention to the entire interpretive field texts The considered ideas of Ernst Jünger demonstrate this thesis, expanding the contextual field of the Nietzschean Overman and the metaphysics of the Will to Power and giving these concepts in an interpreted form a particular social dimension along with the philosophical one, which provides a new context for the interpretation of the ideas of Friedrich Nietzsche. (shrink)

Both the Johannine and Akan cultures are described in scholarly literature as collectivistic communities that value love as a communal value. Nonetheless, a scholarly analysis of the Akan concept reveals that Akan proverbial tradition promotes love motivated by the expectation of reciprocation. Thus, the article aimed to provide a biblical response to these challenges for Akan Christians, who hold love as both a traditional and theological value. Consequently, the study employed Gatti’s dialogic hermeneutics because it encourages engagement between text (...) and culture, viewing them as dialogue partners from which a call to action emanates directed at the interpreter’s context. Even though the Akan concept relates love to sacrifice, forgiveness and reciprocity, it promotes conditional love, thereby diminishing its concept of love-motivated sacrifices and reciprocity. By incarnating the concept of love that Jesus promotes and embodies in John, Akan Christians can establish a culture that reflects the community of God, proscribing conditional love and prescribing utmost and greater love – godly selfless and reciprocal love. In addition, it makes love the substratum of functional unity and interpersonal relationships. Ultimately, it makes love a divine command for the community of believers. Contribution: This article engages the Johannine and the Akan ideations of love through dialogic hermeneutics and, as such, contributes to African biblical hermeneutics and the ongoing discussions on the inculturation of the New Testament within the African context. (shrink)

This article develops a new approach for theorizing about hermeneutical injustice. According to a dominant view, hermeneutical injustice results from a hermeneutical gap: one lacks the conceptual tools needed to make sense of, or to communicate, important social experience, where this lack is a result of an injustice in the background social methods used to determine hermeneutical resources. I argue that this approach is incomplete. It fails to capture an important species of hermeneutical injustice which doesn’t result from a lack (...) of hermeneutical resources, but from the overabundance of distorting and oppressive concepts which function to crowd-out, defeat, or preempt the application of a more accurate hermeneutical resource. I propose a broader analysis that better respects the dynamic relationship between hermeneutical resources and the social and political contexts in which they are implemented. (shrink)

This paper addresses the question of the function of genre in Gadamer’s hermeneutics by examining his treatment of Plato’s political writings in the context of the “utopian genre.” I argue that Gadamer’s reading of Plato informs us on the hermeneutics of genre, which is otherwise undiscussed in Truth and Method. First, I reconstruct the utopian genre as Gadamer treats it in a 1983 lecture hitherto neglected. Second, I expand Gadamer’s “logic of question and answer” by drawing on the notion of (...) genre as articulated by E.D. Hirsch and show that attention to genre is not only compatible with Gadamerian hermeneutics, but also productive. Finally, I demonstrate that an application of this concept of genre to the case of Plato’s political philosophy reveals a problem in Gadamer’s interpretation, namely a certain confusion between dialogue and utopia, and propose two ways of explaining this confusion and thus of resolving the aporia. (shrink)

This paper addresses the question of the function of genre in Gadamer’s hermeneutics by examining his treatment of Plato’s political writings in the context of the “utopian genre.” I argue that Gadamer’s reading of Plato informs us on the hermeneutics of genre, which is otherwise undiscussed in Truth and Method. First, I reconstruct the utopian genre as Gadamer treats it in a 1983 lecture hitherto neglected. Second, I expand Gadamer’s “logic of question and answer” by drawing on the notion of (...) genre as articulated by E.D. Hirsch and show that attention to genre is not only compatible with Gadamerian hermeneutics, but also productive. Finally, I demonstrate that an application of this concept of genre to the case of Plato’s political philosophy reveals a problem in Gadamer’s interpretation, namely a certain confusion between dialogue and utopia, and propose two ways of explaining this confusion and thus of resolving the aporia. (shrink)

이 글은 하이데거의 존재론 개념이 무엇을 의미하는지를 드러내는 것을 그 목적으로 한 다. 왜냐하면 하이데거의 초기-전기 철학은 존재론이라는 이름 안에서 움직이고 있기 때 문이다. 이를 위해 하이데거 존재론이 가지고 있는 두 가지 측면을 살펴본다. 우선 하이데 거의 존재론은 현상학이다. 그의 고유한 현상학은 후설의 현상학을 비판하면서 정립된다. 후설의 현상학은 엄밀한 학문으로서의 철학으로 대표되는 의식 철학 이론인데, 하이데거 의 현상학은 후설의 현상학에서 이론적인 측면과 의식 철학적 측면을 비판한다. 이 때 하 이데거가 경험에서 일차적이고 가장 근원적이면서 환원 불가능한 것으로 생각하게 되는 것은 현존재의 (...) 현사실성이다. 그러므로 현사실성을 주제로 삼는 그의 존재론의 두 번째 측 면인 해석학이 부각된다. 현존재의 현사실성은 역사성으로 이해된다. 이러한 역사적인 현 존재가 그때마다의 자기 자신과 세계를 이해하고 해석하는 현존재의 현상학은 존재론으로 서 해석학이다. 이와 같은 하이데거 존재론의 두 가지 측면을 해명하기 위해 하이데거가 어떻게 후설을 비판하고 있는지를 초기 프라이부르크 강의들에서 살펴보고, 그가 현사실 성을 어떻게 주제화시키는지, 그리고 나아가????존재와 시간????에서 존재론의 두 가지 측면이 어떻게 전개되었는지를 살펴볼 것이다. 현사실성에 근거한 그의 현상학적-해석학적 존재 론에 대한 이해는 이후 존재 역사적 사유로 나아가는 하이데거의 변화와 전개에 대한 이해 의 토대가 될 수 있을 것이다. (shrink)

Hermeneutical Heidegger critically examines and confronts Heidegger's hermeneutical approach to philosophy and the history of philosophy. Heidegger's work, both early and late, has had a profound impact on hermeneutics and hermeneutical philosophy. The essays in this volume are striking in the way they exhibit the variety of perspectives on the development and role of hermeneutics in Heidegger's work, allowing a multiplicity of views on the nature of hermeneutics and hermeneutical philosophy to emerge. As Heidegger argues, the rigor and strength of (...) philosophy do not consist in the development of a univocal and universal method, but in philosophy's ability to embrace—not just tolerate—the questioning of its basic concepts. The essays in Hermeneutical Heidegger are exemplars of this kind of rigor and strength. (shrink)

This is the first monograph to develop a hermeneutic approach to the digital--as both a technological milieu and a cultural phenomenon. While philosophical in its orientation, the book covers a wide body of literature across science and technology studies, media studies, digital humanities, digital sociology, cognitive science, and the study of artificial intelligence. In the first part of the book, the author formulates an epistemological thesis according to which the "virtual never ended." Although the frontiers between the real and (...) the virtual are certainly more porous today, they still exist and endure. In the book's second part, the author offers an ontological reflection on emerging digital technologies as "imaginative machines." He introduces the concept of emagination, arguing that human schematizations are always externalized into technologies, and that human imagination has its analog in the digital dynamics of articulation between databases and algorithms. The author takes an ethical and political stance in the concluding chapter. He resorts to the notion of "digital habitus" for claiming that within the digital we are repeatedly being reconducted to an oversimplified image and understanding of ourselves. Digital Hermeneutics will be of interest to scholars across a wide range of disciplines, including those working on philosophy of technology, hermeneutics, science and technology studies, media studies, and the digital humanities. (shrink)

This paper is an assessment of the key debates on Heidegger’s existential conception of science. It relates the topics to contemporary problems in the philosophy of the natural sciences, providing the reader with a framework to evaluate various versions of hermeneutic phenomenology of scientific research as alternatives to both, naturalistic and normativeepistemological conceptions of scientific research. The paper delineates a context of constitution that is irreducible to the context-distinction between discovery and justification. In this context, the tenets of the (...) doctrine of cognitive existentialism are formulated. (shrink)

Hermeneutic Research: An Experiential Method presents a method to investigate lived experiences. In doing so, this book integrates a broad range of philosophical topics, such as hermeneutics, the philosophy of consciousness, and the philosophy of being. We are conscious beings. Through every act of consciousness, something is presented to the experiencing person. Something--a theme--stands in the focus of attention. Within the dimensional human consciousness, this theme is related to other thoughts, a process that includes certain aspects of the theme (...) and excludes others from conscious experience. The foundational conviction of the experiential method detailed in this book is that thought is not static in its ultimate nature but organically dynamic. Thought uncovers its internal endlessness through time as its medium, just as the small seed uncovers the unity of a tree through soil as its medium. Thought, as a dynamic self-revealing phenomenon, uncovers itself as a series of understandings that cannot be interpreted except through reciprocal reference. Meaningfulness, therefore, is not contained in self-identity but in the larger whole in which it is a specific part. Wholeness contains possibilities of knowledge as present realities revealing themselves, through human choices and experiences, in temporal progression to reach a unity that is already contained in them. This infinite movement of knowledge thus reveals the possibility intrinsic to finite thought. Intuition, as wholistic apprehension, is movement that could acknowledge and reach an immanent infinite, of which the finite concepts of comprehension and cognition are only momentums. (shrink)

‘The co-production of meaning’ is a popular, widely-used, but under-defined concept. To better understand the co-production of meaning, we shall attempt to develop an account of co-production through phenomenological psychopathology. Through Hans Georg Gadamer’s remarks on ‘the hermeneutic problem of psychiatry’, we distinguish kinds of contingent and intrinsic obstacles to 'co-production'. In calling attention to these obstacles, we problematise the concept of ‘co-production’ in public mental health, revealing it to be more complex than originally thought. We conclude (...) that new developments in phenomenological psychopathology can be used to overcome some of the limitations of ‘co-production’. (shrink)

This is a collection in translation of essays by Paul Ricoeur which presents a comprehensive view of his philosophical hermeneutics, its relation to the views of his predecessors in the tradition and its consequences for the social sciences. The volume has three parts. The studies in the first part examine the history of hermeneutics, its central themes and the outstanding issues it has to confront. In Part II, Ricoeur's own current, constructive position is developed. A concept of the text (...) is formulated as the implications of the theory are pursued into the domains of sociology, psychoanalysis and history. Many of the essays appear here in English for the first time; the editor's introduction brings out their background in Ricoeur's thought and the continuity of his concerns. The volume will be of great importance for those interested in hermeneutics and Ricoeur's contribution to it, and will demonstrate how much his approach offers to a number of disciplines. (shrink)

The Hermeneutics of the Subject is the third volume in the collection of Michel Foucault's lectures at the College de France, one of the world's most prestigious institutions. Faculty at the college give public lectures, in which they can present works-in-progress on any subject of their choosing. Foucault's were more speculative and free-ranging than the arguments of such groundbreaking works as The History of Sexuality or Madness and Civilization . In the lectures comprising this volume, Foucault focuses upon the ways (...) the "self" and consequently "self-study" have been conceived since the days of antiquity, starting with Socrates. Definitions and conceptions of "self-study" in Greek and Roman literature, Foucault argues, remain in force today, and underlie modern interpretations of the self. Engaging, engrossing, and provocative, The Hermeneutics of the Subject reveals Foucault at the height of his powers. (shrink)

This paper is an assessment of the key debates on Heidegger’s existential conception of science. It relates the topics to contemporary problems in the philosophy of the natural sciences, providing the reader with a framework to evaluate various versions of hermeneutic phenomenology of scientific research as alternatives to both, naturalistic and normativeepistemological conceptions of scientific research. The paper delineates a context of constitution that is irreducible to the context-distinction between discovery and justification. In this context, the tenets of the (...) doctrine of cognitive existentialism are formulated. (shrink)